Buried midway down, they mention that the commercial health plans available to people without conventional employers (Obamacare) can (and routinely do) set deductibles as high as $9,450. And that’s
in addition to the premium-which, in New York City for example, starts at $618/month for the very worst plan for an individual. Sure, that’s subsidized for lower-income households — but who among those has a spare $10K lying around to spend out of pocket before they actually benefit from the insurance?
When you’ve budgeted the $7,400 to pay for premiums whether or not you use healthcare, and the insurance doesn’t even kick in until you’ve spent a total of $16,800 on medical care in a given year, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me that people feel like they’ve already paid enough, and that the payers and providers should sort it out amongst themselves.
There’s economic, contractual, and policy reality; but then, even among people who might be able to afford it, there’s the gut feeling of “I’ve already paid way too much for this 5-minute checkup, I’m not paying more.”
When you’ve budgeted the $7,400 to pay for premiums whether or not you use healthcare, and the insurance doesn’t even kick in until you’ve spent a total of $16,800 on medical care in a given year, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me that people feel like they’ve already paid enough, and that the payers and providers should sort it out amongst themselves.
There’s economic, contractual, and policy reality; but then, even among people who might be able to afford it, there’s the gut feeling of “I’ve already paid way too much for this 5-minute checkup, I’m not paying more.”